3 – Kevin Owens beating John Cena in debut
After quickly dominating the majority of the NXT roster since his debut down in Florida back in December 2014, Kevin Owens answered one of John Cena’s open challenges for the United States Championship. However, instead of actually having a match with Cena, Owens attacked the champ and then proceeded to stomp on the belt that Cena so proudly wore around his waist.
This set up the first of their three matches at Elimination Chamber back in May. In all honesty, it was the perfect match for fans – both casual fans and smart wrestling fans had their person to bet on. John Cena was everything the hardcore fans hated, he pandered to the crowd too much, he had a set of moves he never waivered from and he was aimed at pleasing the children in the crowd, whom WWE can make more money from. Kevin Owens had battled on the independent wrestling scene since he was 16 years old and prided himself on the techniques he used in the ring. The stage was set and the audience was ready.
As soon as the two started to get a feel for each other, chants of “Let’s go Cena!” and “Cena sucks!” echoed around the American Bank Center in Texas.
Owens made it his priority to counter Cena’s “five moves of doom”, initially countering his first attempt at his patented shoulder blocks with the ‘Go Home Driver’. Following that, Cena perfectly hit four of the five moves, before Owens countered the Attitude Adjustment and hitting Cena with the Pop-Up Powerbomb. Cena kicked out at two though, as you might expect.
Later in the match, Owens attempted his moonsault, which Cena narrowly avoided before giving Owens the AA, but Owens managed to kick out of Cena’s finisher too. The back and forth in the match was incredible and the chemistry these two had in the ring was unrivalled that night, apart from maybe the main event of Rollins/Ambrose.
The bout was full of drama. Owens was clearly the better technician, but Cena had the resiliency the combat that. It was a case of whether Owens could get past that, so what did Owens do? He got in John’s head – first by attempting the Five Knuckle Shuffle, which was countered, but then nailing an AA on Cena, who only just managed to kick out. Whatever Owens threw at Cena, the Doctor of Thuganomics was able to take.
After twenty minutes of enduring everything Owens could give, Cena finally took a second Pop-Up Powerbomb and Owens managed to pin Cena to secure what Michael Cole described as “possibly the most monumental victory in WWE history”.